


The Problem With "Helpful" Friends

by Gale-Of-Stories (Home_Sweet_Homebrew), Occultura



Series: Dance Around My Edges [2]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-01-24 07:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18566332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Home_Sweet_Homebrew/pseuds/Gale-Of-Stories, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Occultura/pseuds/Occultura
Summary: After a swarm of pesky demons breaks through your basement floor and wreaks havoc with all your stuff, you decide to ask a friend for help, things naturally don't go as planned.





	1. Stop With The Heart Eyes, Man

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic that features an OC! WOO, okay so this is probably gonna be about 3 chapters long I'm not sure yet. (Real bad at that structure stuff lmao)
> 
> I hope you guys like this!!!
> 
> If you have a request for a fic or headcanon!: gale-of-stories.tumblr.com

_“No.”_

“Why? He’s perfectly capable of handling the problem-”

“I know that’s not why you want him there, so the answer remains no.”

“Oh come on! That was once and I _promise_ I’ll behave myself this time, you actually need the help.”

“I don’t believe that, you just want to invite Dante here so you can suck on his face in my basement while ‘ _the problem’_ continues to try and eat me everytime I go down there.”

“Okay, _first of all_ I don’t _suck his face_ I _kiss_ him and second of all—”

Across from you your dear _annoyingly love sick_ friend Gale Weathers bunches up an entire handful of fries, points them accusingly at you, and begins to mop up an illegal amount of ketchup to stuff her face with, her voice has taken on a mock scandalized tone, but the glint in her eye makes you groan before she even finishes. ~~“—~~ my _god_ he’s handsome, you’d be doing it too.”

_“Gale. I have a minor demon infestation in my basement._ Can you _please_ stay on track, yknow, getting me help- _**not Dante!”**_

There’s a conspiratorial moment in which she sits there across from you, mouth slightly puffed as she chews her fries down, eyes comically squinted in thought.

Lunch rush began an hour ago and the shitty Red Grave diner which you both sit is currently jam packed with people and noise, smells of faintly burnt food waft about in a scent-burrito of smoke and astringent coffee and the sky outside slowly yawns its way into warm yellows and oranges, it’s awful, low end and definitely doesn’t follow city code, but you wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Okay okay, I have an idea, _doesn’t involve Dante,_ since you seem to have a phobia or something-” you roll your eyes and swat playfully at her across the table “-but he _will_ have to come along, I’ll make you, me _and_ him happy all in one go, because I’m amazing like that.”

“Mmhmm, and how does this work exactly, for all of us?”

“Simple, gonna have his weird older brother do it while we make out upstairs instead of in the dingy basement.”

You would roll your eyes and return to lecturing her about using your apartment as a crash pad but your mind snags on a detail in her sentence.

“Older brother?”

“Oh yeah dude, Dante’s a twin, his brother is _basically_ an asshole undergoing ‘don’t-be-an-asshole-anymore’ therapy, so he’s trying to get him out into the world doing little shit like, _say,_ clearing out a small demon nest.”

And so it clicks, Dante wants to help his brother adjust, Gale wants to eat Dante, you want the fucking demons to stop spitting acid on your walls.

“Okay, okay! Fine. Bring your boyfriend and his brother over, and _soon,_ you still owe me for the flowerbed incident.”

“Hey I still say that’s your fault, I told you me and plants don’t get along.”

She begins to obnoxiously slurp from her glass of soda, staring at you from the corner of her eye as she does, and you work toward finishing off the burger on your plate. Conversation lulls into an easy hum, things like work- or “work” in Gale’s case, and about vacation plans and summertime fun.

“Okay listen girl I gotta go to work, I’ll stop by the bus later for whatever crazy plan you’ve hatched in that brain of yours.”

You stand and give her an affectionate pat on the shoulder as you pass by, turning out the door and hearing faintly as it slips closed.

_“He likes it when you call him Gusty!”_

 

* * *

 

Work is a pain in the ass, coworkers are a pain in the ass.

Your shirt is ruined after having copious amounts of juice spilled on it and you want to go home- but of course you can’t go home because demons are turning your basement stairs into a light brunch, heaven forbid they realize there’s another floor.

You round the corner of some flashy downtown side street that Gale has decided to crash at this week and sigh with resignation, there directly ahead is the bus, lovingly named Gusty for whatever damn reason.

“Gusty” is admittedly a bit of a marvel, like an even larger than average double decker, or maybe a eighteen-wheeler Lite, you don’t know where she got the thing but it’s huge.

The side of the bus, converted into a stall of sorts for selling her many odd wares is currently open, a radio sits on the bar top playing some generic tropical summer music and on plastic lawn chairs in front of it using an old oil drum as a table for their drinks, is Gale and her dear old boyfriend Dante.

The man’s signature red jacket is off and draped over the back of the chair, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows and he’s leaning all the way forward into Gale’s personal space, they seem to be having a bit of a...er...staring contest?

You watch your friend squint for a long moment staring at him, before her mouth quirks up into a grin.

“Y’all’d’ve.”

_“Stop!_ I yield, you win, never say anything like that again.” Dante has now sat back as if Gale just pulled out the third royal flush in a row and rendered him utterly bankrupt, he sounded irritated but there’s an affectionate grin on his face.

“Never underestimate my capacity to forge words together again, old man.”

She smiles at him smugly and leans back into her seat.

“Glad you could finally make it.” Her eyes drag over to look at you.

“Dante, I’ve told you about my friend ___ and her little, predicament shall we say?”

“Indeed you have, I can have it taken care of by the end of the day, just in time for you to tuck your little head in.”

The older man gives you a handsome smile and stands leisurely, approaching with a saunter. _“Of course,_ I have been informed you don’t want my help, something about _unprofessional_ activities.”

You can hear Gale snort into her drink.

“Yeah I don’t want you fucking Gale on my couch, please.”

You’re aware you sound snappy, but today has gotten very tiring. You hear an awkward clearing of someone's throat, and looking away from Dante reveals the new member of the group.

Standing in the doorway of the bus is a tall man in a button-up and slacks, his pale hair is loosely slicked back accentuating a devilishly angular face, strapped to his side is, yep, it’s a katana, this man has a katana.

He’s clearly uncomfortable at the moment.

“That was more than I particularly cared to hear about.” The man steps down from his place on the stairs and approaches, quickly filling his place as the taller man of the two- _maybe it’s the hair?_

His voice is raspy and light, and his eyes are an icy pale blue, but there’s no mistaking his resemblance to Dante, this must be the mystery twin.

“Since they do not seem keen to introduce us I will, my name is Vergil.”

“___, good to meet you. And thanks in advance for the help.”

You’re aware that you’re staring as you grasp his hand into a firm shake.

He’s kinda hot. Dammit.

He doesn’t reply verbally really, just grunts and nods his head as he steps back.

“And our destination is?”

“Oh! Yeah, uh, right. I don’t really have a ride but it’s not far from here.”

You give him directions and feel a stare burning into you, making your cheeks light up pink. Out of the corner of your eye you can see Gale grinning, grinning _way_ too wide, oh no.

You don’t get the chance to protest, the man you now know as Vergil begins to discuss dealing with the demons in your basement with Dante and no sooner do you manage to tell them what you think they are before you’re being hauled away by your arm in Gale’s steel grip.

“You like him, you like him!” She’s practically bouncing back and forth on her sandal clad feet.

“Shut _up_ it’s not like that, I just met the guy.”

“Oh _please_ you think he’s hot shit, don’t want me on the couch with Dante cause that’s gonna be your spot tonight _ooooooooo.”_ Her voice takes on a comically high note as you beat on her arm, flushing violently red.

“Shall we go, then?”

You’re both cut off by Vergil, who’s already begun to walk away in the direction of your overtaken home and stopped only to look over his shoulder at the two of you.

“Y-yeah, one moment.”

Dante stayed in his spot, and though he looks perfectly calm and blissfully unaware, there’s something about the look on his face that tells you he heard more of that conversation than you wanted him to.

You turn long enough to swat Gale hard on the arm again, which earns you a laugh and _‘bow chicka bow-wow’_ as she plucks her drink up off the barrel and drinks heavily from it, playfully wagging her brows at you.

You practically run for Vergil, eager to get away from _all this_ and he lets you lead the way home.

Ugh. This is gonna be a long night.


	2. Welp, I Blew That

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2,482 words! Now THATS a chapter size I can feel okay with. I hope you guys like this!!! <3

The walk isn’t necessarily _awkward_ per se, but it’s definitely quiet juxtaposed to the earlier debacle with Gale and Dante, Vergil seems to feel no need to fill the air with idle chit chat as you approach the street you call your own, and while you’re confident of your friends recommendation, you still feel nerves begin to swell.

“This is the spot.”

“Mmm.”

He encroaches considerably upon your space now, no doubt to make sure you don’t get hurt as you unlock your front door and slowly peer into the living room, so far so good, no noticeable damage to any furniture, no blood pus or acid on your nice white walls.

You feel him slip past you like a shade, moreso his heat than his actual body brushing up against you. He spares casual glances about, clearly unperturbed by the utter lack of activity, his hand is still firm on the blade at his hip but he’s straightened himself out now.

“I’ll head for the basement, you stay here.”

“Ah...Yeah okay, fair.”

There’s a flash of a moment where you think he might’ve grinned, but he turns and leaves deeper into your house before you can confirm it, scouring rooms for either a door to the basement or demons who have found their way up now.

You suspect that won’t be the case and flop down on your couch for a moment, staring at the ceiling and pondering things now that you can idle.

There’s a cute guy in your house.

Your friend knows you think he’s cute.

Your friend wants you to fuck the cute guy in your house.

To be fair you kind’ve want to as well, but Jesus now was not the time to think like that, he was just doing a good samaritans deed to convince his brother that he wasn’t- wait, why _does_ he need to be doing this? No one ever specified to you why he was on the proverbial naughty list.

You can hear the click and whine of the door opening, another hum from Vergil and then not a moment later loud thoroughly pissed of shrieking from the room below, ever so often punctuated by the crack of something likely being trashed.

_‘Hope I didn’t forget anything valuable down there.’_

There are a few times he shouts something, whether he’s pissed off or just enjoying himself is hard to say, but everytime you hear his high timbre you can feel the house shake with the force of something being thrown into it, although peculiarly it’s getting more faint as time goes on.

The fuck?

You elect to investigate despite your better judgement that says heading into a basement full of demons and a lone stranger isn’t the brightest idea. Standing up and walking about elicits no noise from beneath you, which tells you that there’s nothing there to notice, and so you head for the basement stairs and begin the climb down.

First thing you notice is the absolute piss poor smell from the place, it’s rotten, acrid and very eh...organic, like a thousand high school gym’s worth of B.O. decided to hold congregation here.

Next of course, as your eyes adjust to your surroundings, is a copious amount of blood, all red- which makes it hard to tell if any of it is from Vergil- and all over the damn place, it’ll take you weeks to clean.

Finally, and most alarmingly, _**definitely most alarmingly,**_ is the fact that the demons have _clearly_ been making renovations. Namely the fact that there’s a massive six foot by six foot tunnel in the far corner of your basement.

Part of you wants to turn around and leave, but your conscience tells you that you can’t know if the man is okay- you thought that it was a small infestation of pest-like demons, not a massive tunnel leading to what is no doubt much larger and much more deadly creatures in the depths- and that if he’s hurt it’s on you, you can’t leave him behind.

You huff, might as well go in the outfit you’re in now, it’s already stained and you want an excuse to get rid of these awful shoes anyways. You take a hesitant step and gag at the audible squelch the upturned dirt makes, shudder and then continue on faster this time, head up and ears strained for any noises.

Slinking your way down the tunnel took awhile, on second thought mary janes weren’t the best choice for spelunking, and you reflexively froze everytime you thought you heard something move around, but eventually _actual_ noise started to form, the loud tell-tale clank of a blade making contact with something hard. _Vergil._

You peer around the corner that the tunnel works out into and realize this is just an offshoot of a much larger tunnel that yawns out like a cavern, and there a good thirty feet away is Vergil.

He’s got his back to you and he’s slowly sidestepping a demon at least three times his own size, the massive thing looks like someone got drunk and went “Hey, you know what would be absolutely fucking terrible? Just the worst?” and proceeded to smash the heads and abdomens of several overgrown wasps onto the body of a nondescript lizard, making an utter abomination in the process.

The creature in question was advancing at a brutal pace against the hunter sent to help you clear out your home, and while Vergil was almost lazy in his movements, it didn’t change the fact that he _was_ on the defensive. There wasn’t a whole lot you could do, there was no leverage or cover here it was just a giant hole under the ground, and as such only one thought came to mind.

You pressed your lips together and whistled as hard as you could. The sound was _explosive_ in the vacancy of this place.

Immediately the creature reared its head to stare you down, completely disregarding Vergil in favor of running you down, you wonder if the sound hurt it’s...ears? God this thing was ugly.

A fraction of you panicked- _‘oh fuck big speed demon running at me’_ \- but you held your ground and as the stupid bastard barreled past Vergil grabbed onto it’s spindly repti-insectoid arm and near effortlessly flung himself upon its shoulders, unsheathing his katana and driving it down through the top of the demons head and halting it’s motion entirely.

There was a yawning moment where its body remained standing staring vacantly ahead before it slowly keeled forward and crashed onto the ground, letting the man atop it jump off with a elegant slide across the dirt.

“You alrigh-” “-are you doing-”

Both of you speak over each other and stop at almost the same pace, awkward.

“Why are you here?”

“I was worried, it was taking awhile and the noise…” You break off as you take in his appearance, there’s a heavy sheen of sweat across his face that you know is definitely more than just from a good workout and trailing your eyes down confirms it.

He’s relatively unscathed outside of the large gash in his side, it’s shredded the white button-up he’s in and while not bleeding heavily anymore, or at all really, there’s an ugly discoloration around it that speaks paragraphs as to how infected or worse yet poisoned it’s likely becoming as you speak.

“I wasn’t aware I asked you for help.”

You blink up at him and the acidity of his voice as he stares, as if you’ve offended him deeply by coming down here, and for a moment the look on his face tells you it does, but he looks away and back at you for a second.

“I mean to say, I thought I told you to stay above, you shouldn’t be wandering around down here untrained and unarmed, let alone deliberately attracting the ire of these things.”

You can hear the physical effort to be more polite, or perhaps to hide the strain from the wound.

“I know, but I told you this was a minor job and I was clearly wrong. We need to go.”

“We?” “I’m not leaving you down here with an open festering wound, and the others need to know about this.”

“I’ll be fine, and I’m more than capable of clearing this out.”

“Vergil, you’re sweating buckets and look nauseous. This tunnel is bigger than my house and so long I can’t see the end either direction. Therefore, not fine and not continuing this alone. Got it?”

You can see it, the rebellious glint in his eye, he wants to fight you on it.

“Vergil…”

“Mmph.” You watch him work his jaw and then gesture slightly, imploring you to turn around and start walking. Good enough.

Trekking back up the tunnel is easier than getting down it was, especially with him by your side to help if something springs out of the ground like an awful weed to try and fight, but you find yourself sparing him worried glances often, his silence is utterly stoic and while his movements and facial expressions don’t change at all, you can very faintly hear the increased labor of his breaths, even if the wound really isn’t bad for him like he says, the infection and/or poison definitely is.

You step aside to let him up the stairs and into the main floor of your house and he pauses to look at you for a moment before continuing up. You follow after him and shut the door, locking it behind you and half wanting to block it with your fridge or something, but you figure if something really wanted to get out it would anyways.

Vergil begins to immediately make for the front door and you snag him by his cuff. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To...inform the others? What are you doing?”

“Take your shirt off.”

You almost laugh when his head rears back like a startled bird, and he’s halfway to sputtering a response when you cut in. “So I can look at the wound. I’m not letting you run around while that thing begins to grow new things from it.”

The shock wears away to plain annoyance. “I said I’m fine.”

“And _I_ said bullshit, so take your shirt off, I’ll pin you to a chair if I have to.”

You watch him narrow his eyes at you as if he was seriously going to take you on that challenge. “Don’t be a stubborn _ass,_ just sit in the fucking chair and let me patch you up.”

He grumbles again quietly and shuffles foot to foot, clearly still not entirely convinced of this, so you reach up and plant a hand near but not on his wound, and grin smugly when it elicits a groan of discomfort.

“Yep, shining bill of health.”

He huffs hard in response and finds a chair in the dining room to sit down on stiffly, beginning to unbutton the ruined shirt, you rummage about in the bathroom and the kitchen for supplies to help at least get rid of the worst of the problem and when you return you feel yourself turn bright red.

He’s only taken off half of his shirt but honestly that’s all you need to see, unobstructed by the tatters of his shirt you can make out the creamy plains of his muscled torso, there’s a soft sheen across his skin and you can see his chest rise and fall with his breaths. You manage to shake yourself before the staring becomes indecent and focus your eyes on the wound.

It’s worse than you thought. The wound is jagged and very deep and you can see discoloration that’s distinctively supernatural in nature, a glittery blue green color clinging to strange shards and chunks embedded into his muscle tissue.

“You’re fine _my ass.”_

You pull up a seat of your own and sit close enough your knee brushes his, setting down the armful of supplies you’d gathered onto the table and picking up a pair of tweezers as you lean down.

You’re almost scared to start fucking with the pieces imbedded into his flesh, so you start with tiny shards sticking out of his skin around the edges of the cut, they don’t resist you or try to pull some supernatural bullshit like embedding themselves even deeper into him, so you build up your confidence and begin to pick and pry at the larger pieces.

A particularly vicious pieces makes him grunt as you pull at it and you look up. “Sorry.”

He looks like he’s been watching you for awhile, and there’s a peculiar look on his face.

“I’m fine.”

You huff a sigh. He’d probably say that with a spear in his chest.

“Okay.”

You continue on in silence again, beside you in a tupperware bowl is a small pile of sticky bilious blue-green pieces of what you’ve now discerned is likely bone. Most of the pieces have been removed from him and while he still manages to keep his composure you can feel the twitch in his abdomen every time you lean in to pry again, this had to be fucking painful.

With the last one pulled you drop the tweezers in the bowl next to the gross mess and hear him heave out a breath of relief. You reach for a bottle of alcohol and a gauze wipe to clean off whatever is left behind and wince apologetically as it makes a loud hiss on contact with his wound.

You don’t trust yourself to try and stitch the damn thing and imagine his patience for this is wearing thin anyways, and elect to patch and wrap his side with a sterile dressing. 

“Sorry that took so long…”

He’s leaned back in the chair now, almost slouching, and staring at you from half hooded eyes.

“It’s fine, it would be impolite of me to be angry.”

That gets a short laugh out of you, the fact that he has to say that as if he’s lecturing himself.

“Look, it’s like three in the morning, the tunnel isn’t going anywhere and you shouldn’t be wandering about with a gaping hole in your side.”

You see the puzzled look on his face at your offer, he seems to get quite uncomfortable in fact.

“I…”

“It’s just a couch to crash on for the night. I know I don’t know you that well, I just don’t want to shove you out the door after you got hurt on my behalf.”

You begin to scoop up all the supplies and put them back in their respective shelves.

“I’ll call up Dante and Gale first thing in the morning and tell them-”

You turn to find yourself alone in the house, the front door partially open, and Vergil’s shredded shirt on the floor.


	3. Show Off

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took longer than I wanted it to but alas, here it is! Very OC heavy.

Ugh, you are a disaster, absolute _wreck._

Following Vergil’s disappearance you sat on the floor for a good ten minutes debating whether or not you should just cut your own tongue out. Just had to push it too hard. Nice.

Swallowing up your embarrassment however you began to clean up the kitchen and contemplate what there is you can do to barricade the door while you sleep tonight, _if_ you can sleep past the humiliation.

 _God_ why did you have to go and put your foot in your mouth? You just met the guy.

For once you’re mad that you don’t have more to clean, because now standing at your spotless kitchen you can do nothing but think about the sequence of events from earlier, and the utter stomach clenching misery it causes makes you groan loudly and stomp to the living room, firmly planting yourself face down on the couch so you could scream into a pillow.

Your mind drifts about, keenly avoiding it’s new burn, and makes its way to thinking about Vergil anyways. His skin, surprisingly soft but textured with incredibly faint scars that wound up and across his entire body. You’d had half a mind to trace them before remembering this is a stranger and the only reason he’s letting you see them is because of the gaping wound in his side.

You wonder where he got them, a fight no doubt but…

_**Bzzt bzzt bzzt!** _

Your phone begins to rattle and vibrate angrily from it’s spot on the coffee table. When you pick it up and turn it over a fond picture greets you.

The name “MC Hammer” hangs shiny and white over a picture of Gale last summer at a marina in Zallis’ Beach, the two of you had vacationed together but even then you didn’t have enough money for a proper flight and place to stay at, so you road tripped in “Gusty.” In the picture Gale is squatting precariously atop a concrete dock post, her ridiculous pants pulled all the way up to her face and her hands sticking out beside her feet.

You already know _exactly_ why she’s calling, and you don’t think you have the strength left in you to beat her back if you answer, so you set the phone down and hope she’ll give up. It continues rattling for a little while longer before going dead and you sigh in relief, maybe she’ll just-

_**Bzzt bzzt bzzt!** _

God dammit.

You turn yourself onto your side and stare at the phone as it rattles obnoxiously, making pencils and other small things strewn about move slightly. You decide to try and hold on longer.

It keeps buzzing.

It’s still going.

Yep…

Ugh come on…

Finally after staring for what must’ve been a full minute at the phone, going persistently with no sign of stopping you pick up and answer the phone.

“Hel-” “What the _**fuck**_ did you _**do!?”**_

Gale’s familiar voice peels off into what can only be described as a hysterical shriek, or wheeze, followed by manic cackling that makes you pry the speaker from your ear.

You can hear her start talking again and press the phone to your ear.

“-rtless and covered in sweat!? Did you try and jump him or some shit!?”

You can hear a quiet commotion in the background, unfortunately the phone isn’t sensitive enough for you to make it out.

“No Gale, he got hurt so I offered to patch him up.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that. But did you just like, not give his shirt back?”

“Look I uh, I offered for him to spend the night on the couch and he left.”

Gale snorts loudly into the receiver.

“Like Icarus reaching for the sun, friend. I mean I’ll give you credit I’m impressed, you managed to get him half naked on the first date like _damn-”_

“It wasn’t a date!”

“-but still you should’ve known he’d play hard to get, don’t make the poor man feel like a dirty lecher.”

You hear _loud_ commotion form at that, and Gale starts to snicker into the receiver.

“Look at you, you’re blushing like a virgin seeing a c-”

You hear a loud _crash!_ and Gale shrieks, breaking out into howling laughter and even more chaos in the background.

“You’re gonna have to aim better than that Vergil!”

“What the fuck is happening over there?”

“You’ve somehow managed to get this mans’ panties into a twist.”

“Look can you hand me over to him I want to apologize for all this.”

“Nope!”

“What? What do you mean _no?”_

“Honey, you’re _in_ now, just stick to your guns, he’ll come around.”

“I’m not in anything or sticking anywhere it was just a misunderstanding.”

“But it doesn’t _have_ to be.”

“Why are you like this.”

“Lots of reasons.” You hear a whistle and the speaker begins to gently crackle with wind noise.

“Listen ___, you like him, clearly, he’s the first guy I’ve seen you openly ogle in like, _years,_ just humor me, don’t feel all embarrassed because the most emotionally constipated man in Red Grave City panicked and ran away from a good offer from a cute girl.”

You sigh loudly into the receiver and nod at nothing, there’s no point fighting Gale on this, when she thinks or “knows” something that’s just that.

“Look while I’ve got you on here we need to talk.”

“That’s the point of phone calls but yeah, shoot.”

“Ha ha, funny. Look the infestation was a lot worse than I thought, I went down into the basement after Vergil and the little bastards dug a tunnel.”

 _“That’s_ gonna be an expensive foundation repair.”

“Yeah, well it gets worse, at the end of the tunnel the place opened up real wide, had to be miles long in either direction, who knows where it goes or how far, and if someone doesn’t fix this up fast a lot of people could get hurt.”

You hear Gale hum into the receiver. “Yeah that sounds bad. I’ll take this up with Dante and the others and see what we can do, in the meantime maybe you shouldn’t stay at your place?”

_“Gale, I’m not staying at Devil May Cry with-”_

“No, I’m being serious, you have a surface breaching tunnel in your basement, they’ll come back for that space and you don’t know how to fight. You can stay in Gusty with me, like the good old days.”

You know she really is right about this, but the thought of getting up off the couch seems miserable at this point.

“Yeah yeah...fine, can you come here though? I don’t want to walk around outside this late.”

“I got ya, I’ll be on my way in, eh, say an hour? Gotta fill in Dante and work out something rough for this.”

“Okay...see you then.”

* * *

 

You think you may have fallen asleep, you also think that may have been a mistake.

You can hear something moving around in the back of the house and wish with a sudden burning passion that you had in fact moved the fridge in front of the door. You move as slowly as is physically possible for you and peer over the back of the couch.

Huddled in the middle of the kitchen is a large insectoid demon, maybe some form of Empusa, it has the tattered remains of Vergil’s shirt on a pincer and appears to be _eating_ it.

Ew.

It takes some effort but you manage to get off of the couch and out of the front door, huffing indignantly at the fact you’ve been kicked out of your own home, this is absolute nonsense at this point.

You can hear her approaching before you see her, the loud engine of the bus giving her away, it hauls its way up the street before crawling to a stop in front of you, its side doors opening and Gale waving from her seat.

“Looks like you could use a lift!”

“Guess you could say that, the bastards broke down the basement door, didn’t notice me somehow.”

“Wouldja like your old pal Gale to take care of that by any chance?” Her smile is teasing but you know she means it.

“I mean, if you want.”

“Oh _I want_ alright. Dante stole half my work yesterday and I can’t let that slide, gotta get the edge up on him.”

You laugh at the absurdity of that, the fact that they have monthly demon killing quotas or one of them has to do whatever was agreed upon by the other is strange and ridiculous, and yet just so _them_ that you can’t even question it.

You watch her pop out of the seat with a vigor that you envy and prance her way out of the bus, squeezing your arm affectionately as she passes by. For a moment it seems as if she’s just going to enter barehanded, but you can hear the whistle of wind and brace yourself as a massive bladed ring comes hurtling out from the sky.

When it first makes contact the chiming noise it makes is indescribable and echoes out for what has to be several blocks, as it leaves the earth again you can see the massive cut it left in the road as it bounces again, then again, and then finally comes to rest against the earth, rolling merrily to its owner who grips it leisurely.

The ring blade- chakram as it’s called- is quite beautiful, large enough to stand inside of and made out of what appears to be some form of Jade and an unfamiliar yellow stone, carved intricately into wind and cloud motifs.

You don’t know how she manages to exert so much control over the thing, but it’s near effortless as she pulls herself up onto the blade and slowly walks on it, rolling it toward your home and the poor unsuspecting bastards within.

She cups her hands over her mouth and shouts. “HEY, we’re out here!”

After a moment more than just the one demon come barreling out into the street following the sound of a human voice, and you watch as Gale crouches on the blade, one breaks rank and gets too eager, running straight for the woman and she flips backward off the blade, it flies forward with her force and slices deep into the opposing enemy, ricocheting straight upward before falling back down and splitting its skull. You watch her sprint forward and grab it with both hands, spinning on the pads of her feet and bringing the blade around in an arc, slicing two of them and pushing the other three back.

One takes the offensive and swipes out but only catches air as Gale dives through the hoop and brings the flat of it down, smacking into the creatures head and stunning it for a second, she plants the chakram into the ground and grabs on, using it like monkey bars to plant her feet into the stunned demons chest and send it sprawling, then follows up with a blast of wind so forceful the pavement cracks beneath it.

“Four to go!”

She smiles wickedly and whirls around to face them, you hear a loud _chink!_ and watch as the blade, once very large and singular, breaks down into two _much_ smaller chakrams of a similar design, she spins twice on the spot, each time she comes around she lets one blade go with an absolutely fucking frightening level of speed and force- that you suspect is aided by her magic- and they whistle as they cut through the air.

One simply lands dead on and embeds itself halfway into a demon’s chest, effectively pissing it off, the other however arcs through the air and you can faintly make it out as it soars up past the roofs of your neighborhood. Gale dead sprints- now unarmed- for the demon with a chakram in its chest, you can feel the small puff of air as she lifts herself off the ground with a jump, one foot planting itself on the creatures abdomen, you see as she pushes off she snags the chakram with her foot and flips backward, tearing it up and out and returning it to her person.

The second blade momentarily forgotten now comes shrieking back down to the earth as a demon comes charging at Gale from her left, and when it nearly reaches her the blade that had gone airborne before connects with its neck beheading it effortlessly, before skittering off several feet forgotten. The demon with the giant hole in its chest chitters angrily and runs forward again, swinging blindly for Gale who parries the blow with her chakram and spins again, kicking the open wound and making it snarl, she then brings the chakram down in an arc and slices its face.

For a moment it seems unaffected but slowly it becomes more and more haggard before collapsing, still stretched out after Gale’s retreating form.

You can see her gauge the other two who hesitate to approach after her earlier display, contemplating what exactly she wants to do with them, before tilting her head to the side and clicking her tongue at them. She bounces on the spot and crouches perfectly balanced on one foot and claps her hands at them, grinning all the while.

“C’mere you oversized pests.”

They seem to at least have enough intelligence to understand a taunt when they see one, and run forward haphazardly, as they do Gale stands and picks up the forgotten chakram off the ground next to a car whose tire it hopefully didn’t pop, she lazily twirls the two fusing them back together and finally what she’s about to do clicks.

You can feel her sap the air flow away, the entire street going dead- if it were storming you’d think a tornado was about to drop- and use it to spin in place incredibly fast, like a human twister you’d think, before releasing the chakram in both hands and letting it fly, the thing looks like a pinball bouncing between the two demons repeatedly before finally a particularly good cut severs one clean in half, intestines spilling out onto the ground as it falls. The other is missing two of its limbs and is dragging itself on the ground, still trying to attack her even as she playfully saunters around it, taunting its dying form. Finally she picks up the massive chakram and it shrinks to a happy medium in size, larger than the dual wield but small enough to be strapped to her back like a bow would, and brings the blade down onto its head, making it the second beheaded tonight.

“Well then. That was underwhelming.”

“Really? I thought that was fucking spectacular.”

“Awe, shucks. Maybe I’ll get to show you a second display.”

She has specks of blood dotting her clothing but she otherwise is unscathed and smug as can be, turning for your house and waltzing up the steps, she’s only in there for a few moments before leaving with a disappointed sigh.

“Nope, those are the only ones smart enough to come up out of the tunnels.”

“...Smart..? They’re dead now.”

“Yeah but if I hadn’t been here they’d be eating your pretty little face off.”

You roll your eyes as she pats your cheek with a blood flecked hand and prances up into her home on wheels.

“You comin’!?”

“Yeah yeah slow down, damn.”

* * *

 

“Okay explain, tell me all about what happened, I need _details.”_

“Ugh…”

Half an hour ago Gale parked the bus in a nice scenic little parking lot just off the main Red Grave freeway and took a shower while you heated up some of her leftovers, spaghetti _again_ because apparently she had no originality.

The two of you had a companionable chat for the first five seconds of sitting down and eating before the notorious glint in her eye was sparked and the questions she’s been wanting to ask finally bubbled to the surface.

“Look...Okay so we got there, he told me to stay put and went in the basement.”

“Right right, yawn, what _happened.”_

“Shut up I’m getting to it. The noises started to get distant so I went down to check when I noticed the state of my basement, and I wanted to leave but I couldn’t just leave him down there.”

“So you went to find him.”

“Yeah…He was in a fight with some big weird bug lizard so I distracted it to help him get the edge.”

“Bet he hated that.”

“I think he did but he was nice about it. Anyways, I forced him to come back up with me because he was clearly hurt and not doing so hot.”

“Wow…”

“What?”

“Already doting on him like his wife.”

 _“Shut up!”_ You swat at her with your plastic fork and she laughs.

“So he follows you up…”

“Yeah, and immediately tries to leave for Devil May Cry, I told him I was gonna patch him up and when he tried to fight me on it I prodded his wound-”

_“Nice.”_

“-and it clearly hurt, so he finally took the hint and sat down.”

“And then you tore his shirt off.”

“Oh my God. No, _he_ took his own shirt off and I-”

“Ogled him.”

“...Yeah kinda. _But!_ I was good about it and stopped quick, and then I helped pull all the weird shards in his side out and cleaned the wound and bandaged him.”

“And what did he do in the meantime..? Chit chat? Brood?”

“No, I think he kinda just...watched me work.”

“You mean he admired you.”

“What?”

“The guy is a demon with super-healing, he’s also an asshole. He couldn’t care less about someone else's work _especially_ if it’s not beneficial to him to know. He wasn’t watching you work, he was watching _you.”_

You blush and sputter at her but she laughs and holds up her hands before you can retort.

“Just sayin’! And you can’t fight me on this I’ve known him _wayyy_ longer than you, I know how he ticks.”

“Yeah yeah...whatever, I blew it anyways.”

“What makes you say that?”

“He _**ran away.”**_

“Doesn’t mean he dislikes you, just means he’s a shy guy with no social or romantic skills and panicked.”

You sit there and contemplate your food for awhile, picking absentmindedly at it and feeling like a dumb kid, you just met him and you’re already getting some weird hangup about him.

“Look, I’m gonna crawl up into my nest and snooze my ass off, tomorrow though we’re gonna deal with your Son of Sparda situation, believe me I’ve got experience.”

She laughs softly and picks up the plates, dumping them into the trash and stretching aggressively.

“You know how to get the futon out, goodnight loser.”

“Night asshole.”

You watch her ascend the latter to her room and groan loudly, this was fucking ridiculous, you didn’t know him at all, have barely exchanged more than three sentences of conversation, and now she’s trying to hook the two of you up? Nonsense.

Nonsense...right?

Ugh.

You fight with the futon a moment before flopping down on it in dead fish position and look at the ceiling.

What was happening to you?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, what did yall think??? It's my first official time writing out combat afterall!


End file.
